by Mercy Brown
“You want a beer?” Cole asks.
“No, thanks,” I say.
“How about a soda or something?”
“If you can find something as harmless as that here, yeah,” I say. “That’d be perfect.”
I watch him follow Emmy and Travis as they wade through the dancing, drunk mob, thankful that he doesn’t stop to talk to any of the other bra-clad girls who eye him as he makes his way to the kitchen.
Jason smiles and pats the empty spot next to him on the sofa. If he’s not too fucked up, this is going to be the best chance I have, maybe ever, to make a pitch for Soft with Geffen. So I smile back and take a seat, sink into the deep cushions of the plush velvet couch. I can’t deny that it’s surreal to go from knowing Jason Foley, the preppy jock who tormented me in high school, to knowing him as this up-and-coming rock star who wants to hang out with me at his big fancy hotel suite party. Oh, how I hate that knowing him makes me feel cool.
“This is . . . wow, Jason,” I say, looking around. I’m not one for bullshit and have never been good at kissing anyone’s ass but I figure to get Soft in with Geffen, well, it’s going to be worth it. I do my best to sound impressed. “You really made it.”
“Yeah, right?” he says. “We’re a long way from Princeton.”
“How was the show tonight?”
“Fucking awesome, of course,” he says, stretching his arm out across the back of the couch, not around my shoulders but close enough. “You should have been there.”
“Sorry I missed it,” I say. “You know, I’m managing the Soft tour now.”
“Yeah?” he says. “Kinda more like a road trip than a real tour, right? Now this?” he says, gesturing with his other arm at the mad party happening all around us. “This is a tour.”
“Soft will get there one day.”
“I guess anything is possible,” he says, lighting a cigarette.
“Yeah,” I say. “You know, I was thinking maybe you could pass their single along to your guy at Geffen. It would really help me out. I’ve been sending their stuff everywhere, but you know, they could use a nudge to get it out of the pile and listened to . . .”
He takes a long drag and eyes me for a minute. Then he shifts in his seat, spreading his legs so his knee is up along my bare thigh, and he’s somehow a lot closer to me on the couch. I resist the urge to shift away from him, as much as he’s making my skin crawl.
“I don’t know. They’re more of a Matador sound, don’t you think?” he says.
What a competitive prick. Luckily, I’m also a competitive prick. I guess it’s a PDS thing. But I know how to play this.
“The response to their single and their shows on this tour has been unbelievable,” I say. “They packed the house in Charlottesville on a Sunday night and then brought it right down—all on word of mouth. I’m sure they’re going to chart in CMJ this month.”
“Really?” he says. I can see his wheels spinning from here.
“Think of it this way,” I say. “If you help them, you can be the super hip insider guy who got them discovered. They’ll owe you for life. It’ll be like Chris Brokaw discovering Liz Phair for Matador.”
He takes another drag off his cigarette.
“I’ll think about it,” he says, and I’m not sure, but I think he might be trying to look down my shirt. Asshole! “Where will you guys be next Thursday night? Anywhere near Georgia?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a night off,” I say, adjusting my T-shirt. “I’ve been trying to fill it with something between Montevallo and Athens.”
“You want to take a house show off our hands in Atlanta?” he asks. “We got invited to do one and Maury stupidly said yes because it was some old schoolmate of his. But can you imagine the madhouse that would be with the buzz we have right now? Better for an unknown act to take it. You’ll get a lot of new people in front of you from the rumors alone.”
“Does it pay?” I ask.
“For you guys? They’ll probably pass the hat and give you free booze, a carpet to sleep on. That’s more Soft’s speed anyway, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, we’ll do it,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Great,” he says. He picks a business card up off the album with the coke and dusts the white powder from the edge off with his finger, and then runs it along the inside of his bottom lip. Then he hands the card to me. It’s for Criminal Records in Atlanta. On the back is a girl’s name, Misty Crawford, and a date, address, and phone number. Then Jason passes me the straw he’s got in his hand. “Want a hit?”
“Oh,” I say, taking the straw, eyeing the album cover with the thick, white line across it. “Is that coke?”
“Well it’s not aspirin,” he says, taking a long drag off his cigarette, blowing the smoke out over our heads.
“Right,” I say, frozen there for a minute while some small part of me is remembering how I would have killed for Jason and his friends and their bitch-faced girlfriends to accept me back in high school. To think I was cool. Or to even just leave me alone. So now that I’m sitting here with the rock star Jason Foley’s arm draped around me like we’re old pals, it’s like hey, maybe he finally sees I’m somebody worth talking to. And I hate so much that I care. I mean, on a purely intellectual level, I don’t care. But that girl inside of me who was so desperate to be worthy of the popular kids in school—she cares. Right now I have the chance to be somebody important—to help Soft get a record deal with Geffen by making a few connections, partying with the right people. It’s who you know, right? Besides, it’s only a little coke.
I hate myself so much right now.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the album with the line of coke and grasping the straw. “That’s super cool of you. I’ve never done coke before—what do I do?”
“Oh, I’m giving you your first hit?” he says with a slick smile. “Welcome to nirvana, Sunny. Just stick this end in your nose and inhale and be prepared to have your fucking mind blown.”
“Awesome.”
I’m nervous, I can’t lie, but I nod, put the straw to the line, and start to inhale. Just as the first little bit of icy burn hits my nose, I glance up and there’s Cole standing in front of us with a bottle of water and a look of stilted coolness that stops me right in my tracks.
What the fuck am I doing?
I don’t want to do this.
I stop.
But the small bit of cocaine that’s in my nose tickles, and before I can stop it, I sneeze and the rest of the line blows everywhere, all over the album, onto the rug, onto my face.
“Fuck!” Jason says, the anger in his voice tinged with the kind of rage I recall from when we were younger and he was paying kids from Lawrenceville to beat up burnouts in the parking lot for their weed. “Goddamn it, Sunny, just . . . fuck. That was one hell of a hit you just wasted.”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m looking right at Cole when I say it. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“It’s okay, Sunshine,” Cole says, and I detect the beginning of an amused grin that is directed entirely at Jason. “It’s just a little coke. Nobody died.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jason says, brushing the wasted cocaine off his pants. “You know how far I had to send Maury to find that eight ball?”
Cole reaches his hand out to me. “Come on, kitten,” he says. “We’re having a band huddle in the kitchen and your presence is required.”
I’m surprised Cole isn’t mad, but he just grins like he’s trying not to laugh. I take his hand and get up off the couch and give him the most adoring look because, yeah. I feel dumb but I’m really glad this isn’t some big major deal, either. Cole inspects me, brushes something (cocaine, for fuck’s sake) off my face, out of my hair.
“Oh, you guys are . . . are you two a thing?” Jason asks.
“Yeah,” Cole says, now completely amused as he gazes into my
eyes. My heart does ten backflips and I don’t think it’s the coke. “We just got married.”
“Oh,” Jason says. “That’s cool, man. No problem.”
Sometimes I think I understand men even less than I think. Which would mean less than not at all.
In the kitchen, Anton, Miles, Emmy, and Travis are all doing shots of Jägermeister from Dixie cups, debating where the hell we’re going to sleep tonight because obviously we can’t crash with the Pumps. I’m thinking I might have to just put a room on my father’s credit card, or else we’ll all be sleeping in the van tonight. Which means we won’t sleep at all. I’m about to suggest it, when there’s a huge commotion from the other room. We run in there to see what the hell is happening, and there we find Elliot, with three lit sparklers in his fist, which he pumps in front of himself like he’s jerking off, yelling, “Fuck yeah, everybody, pump the Pumps!” The sparks fly everywhere like a fiery trail of jizz. He starts lighting more sparklers and passing them out like daisies to all the girls, causing some shrieks as sparks fly onto the carpet.
“You assholes with the fireworks again?” Jason says. “Elliot, if you set anything on fire this time, I will drop a dime and have your shit sent back to Jersey City in a box.”
Elliot turns around and gives him a wide grin. “Dude, it’s in homage to you and your success. A tribute, if you will.”
Just behind him there’s a fresh billow of smoke and then a loud whistle and a “BANG!” and everybody starts shouting and scrambling for the door.
“That’s it!” Jason jumps on top of the coffee table, clearly coked out of his mind. “Everybody get the fuck out! Elliot, I swear to Christ I will kill you if I get my hands on you!”
Elliot ducks through the crowd, cowering in front of Cole. “Hide me, dude. I think he’s serious this time . . .”
“This time?” I ask. “How many times have there been?”
“A couple,” Elliot says and looks over his shoulder where I see the remnants of hotel room drapes being doused by someone with a chemical fire extinguisher, and the smell of it is making us all cough and gag.
“What the fucking shit, Elliot,” Cole says. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t me, I swear!” he says. “It was just a Black Cat, and I didn’t even set it off! I set it on the windowsill earlier while I was fishing my cigarettes out of my pocket. Some other asshole must have lit it.”
“That’d be me!” a redheaded girl in overall cutoffs and no shirt says with a big, drunk smile. “Fuck yeah, all hail the motherfucking Pumps!”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Elliot says, eyeing her from head to toe.
“Elliot, where the fuck are you?” Jason bellows.
“I’m right here,” he answers, his arms wide open in a “come at me, bro” pose. “Don’t be a pussy, man. Rock stars are supposed to trash their hotel rooms!”
“Not when I’m paying for it, you dick!”
“Wait, you’re paying for it?” Emmy asks. “Not Geffen?”
“I upgraded,” Jason says. “You think I’m sleeping four to a room with those assholes? I don’t think so. This isn’t summer camp, sweetheart. This is a fucking tour.” His arms are wide, sweeping the room when the sprinklers come on and the fire alarm starts to blare. Behind him, someone yells, holding up a small tin container filled with white-tinged water. “Jason, the coke, it’s all fucked!”
In a rage, Jason dive-bombs off the table at Elliot and knocks right into Cole. Cole pulls him off of Elliot, grabs him by the shirt, and pins him to the dining room table. “And just who the fuck do you think you are, giving my wife cocaine while I’m in the next room?”
“Cole!” I gasp in surprise. I guess he was more pissed off about that than I thought.
“His wife?” Emmy says, turning to me.
I don’t even know what to say.
“I swear I didn’t know, dude,” Jason says, like he’s actually afraid of Cole, and I’ve never seen Jason afraid of anybody. “She didn’t tell me!”
Cole lets him up but two other guys rush in behind him. One of them yanks Cole back and shoves him into the crowd, where another guy almost twice his size grabs him. I start to run over to him when Travis blocks me and then pulls his Taekwando on one of the guys, flipping him right on his back while Emmy watches, appreciatively. Thank fucking God, Joey finally bursts through the crowd, pulls the guy off of Cole, and he’s in nothing but a pair of jeans. Not even shoes.
“What the fuck are you guys doing?” Joey yells over the fire alarm and the screaming.
“Getting our hair done,” Cole explains. “What the fuck does it look like?”
“The cops are in the lobby!” a guy in a blue mohawk sticks his head in the door from the hallway and warns. “Everybody run!”
The entire room makes a rush for the door and I panic a little because I’m afraid I’m about to be crushed. Cole shoves his way past several people to get to me. He takes me by the hand and pulls me with him through the crowd and out the door, with Emmy, Travis, and Joey and Crown the Robin trailing right behind us.
Chapter Twelve
Sonia
In case you’re wondering by now if the road is magic, the answer is an unequivocal hell yes. Hell yes, it is.
Case in point: the largest full moon I’ve ever seen is hanging low in the sky over Center Hill Lake, which you can conveniently get to off of Interstate 40, about an hour outside of Nashville. That comes in handy when you’re running from the police, the Pumps, and a horde of irate hotel guests at two a.m. on a Wednesday morning in August.
By three thirty, I find myself sitting beneath that full moon with Cole, dabbing a paper towel damp with Bactine on a small cut next to his eye, now swollen and aching from the fist he hosted there back at the Sheraton. Even so, he looks beautiful to me, lounging in the moonlight, his long legs stretched out as he props himself up on his elbows and lets me tend to him. He’s still smiling even though I know it has to hurt. I lean over to wipe a spot of blood away from his scalp and feel his hand on the back of my neck. He pulls me right down on top of him and everything disappears inside the warmth of his mouth as he kisses me, soft, slow, and deep.
A few yards behind us, Elliot and Emmy are singing an extra slow, quiet duet of “Ring of Fire” while Anton strums quietly on the acoustic guitar. Crown the Robin pass what’s left of the Jägermeister around the campfire. We don’t even know whose it is—Anton just grabbed it from the Pumps’ hotel suite when we ran. As Cole kisses me I can hear the choir of them, Anton, Vincent, Elliot, Miles, Travis, and Emmy, all singing, Down, down, down, as the flames went higher . . . accompanied by Joey’s signature buzz saw snore soaring out into the night from the back of Steady Beth, where he passed out on the way here. Without his shirt or his only pair of shoes.
“At least he got laid tonight,” Emmy says, looking over her shoulder at the van behind her. She takes a swig off the bottle.
“The road will make him a man, yet,” Elliot says, stretching before the fire.
“Looks like it made a man out of Cole, too,” Emmy says, wagging her eyebrows at us. “Sunny, I can’t believe you and Cole got married before me and Travis.”
“Travis married us in the Motel 6 parking lot last night, remember? You were my maid of honor and everything.”
“Goddamn, I’m never drinking PBR again,” she says and makes a fake retching sound.
“Whoa, wait, did we miss an announcement?” Elliot says. “Emmylou, are you and Travis planning to get hitched, sweetheart?”
“No! That’s not what I meant . . .” Emmy says, laughing, but then she stops and I see a wistful look cross her face as she turns to Travis. “Is it?”
“Emmylou, are you saying you want to make an honest man of me?” Travis teases, and holy crow the way they look at each other is intense. Emmy’s face softens and my heart is racing because I can’t figure out how serious th
ey are. I feel Cole’s hand gripping mine so hard, I think he might be just as nervous as I am.
“Oh my God, are you popping the question right here in front of all of us?” Miles says, completely delighted. “Somebody wake Joey up! Who has a video camera? Anton! Vincent?”
“Do it!” Elliot says. “Do it! Do it!”
“No!” I say. “Travis, how many shots of Jägermeister have you had?”
“Sunny, relax,” Cole says. “Trap knows what he’s doing.”
“I don’t know, does he?” Emmy asks, smiling at him.
“Come on,” Travis says, pulling Emmy to her feet. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Miles says. “He’s gonna do it. He’s gonna ask her.”
“This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen,” Elliot says, dreamily. “Look at how he looks at her.”
“He always looks at her like that,” I say, and then I realize, whoa. This could really be it—the moment Emmylou and Travis stop being kids. Holy shit.
Anton picks up the guitar and starts playing “Here Comes the Bride” as Emmy and Travis disappear down the campground path. I turn to look at Cole, who I realize is looking at me exactly the way Travis looks at Emmy. My heart pounds like it’s trying to break its way out of a prison cell.
“Come on, Mrs. McCormack,” he says, and the bars melt. He stands up and pulls me to my feet.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
The moonlight glints in his eye when he smiles at me.
“To find our moment,” he says.
***
There’s a spot somewhere on the north shore of Center Hill Lake that you can only get to by boat. I know this, because Cole loads me, our sleeping bags, and even our backpacks into one of the campground canoes, and paddles us by moonlight to some desolate spot of beach. When we get there, we spread our sleeping bags out and I try not to freak out, because I’m all but certain that sex is on his agenda. And I’m all for that, seriously, but the only other time I’ve had actual sex was last year, drunk in Red Five’s Betty Ford with Hank Hanley. So I’m not exactly experienced. By now, I’m so anxious that as soon as Cole stretches out on the ground I start to undress because I don’t even know how to act in a situation like this. I start to take my T-shirt off, lifting it as high as my bra when I feel his hand over mine, stopping me, and I freeze.